


Act of Continuation

by Sakiku



Series: Acts [4]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Necrophilia, Other, Plug and Play, Religious Themes, Snuff, Spark Sex, Sticky Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-26 09:00:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/648865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sakiku/pseuds/Sakiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is three months after the war ended that Sideswipe comes to Optimus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Act of Continuation

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE heed the warnings in the tags! The entire 'Acts' series is quite full of potential squick-triggers!

It is three months after the war ended that Sideswipe comes to Optimus.

He doesn't need to say anything; his frame and fields tell Optimus all he needs to know. Optimus has known this day would come. He has known it ever since he took Sunstreaker's spark into his own to become the warrior the Autobots so desperately needed: it would be only a matter of time until Sideswipe followed his twin's example.

It is a miracle that Sideswipe's half survived Sunstreaker's deactivation at all, let alone been strong enough to live until the war is over. But ever since Optimus beheaded Megatron – his brother – the Lord High-Protector – his enemy in the ruins of Chicago, Sideswipe has unraveled more and more every day.

The war is over now in all but name. There will probably never be a peace treaty because all Decepticon leaders gone. Megatron. Starscream. Soundwave. Shockwave. They, and all those that have been sucked back through the space bridge. There aren't really any Decepticons left to organize into either an aggressive force or a surrender after that catastrophic battle. And even if there were, they would be reeling from the very same thing all Autobots are.

Cybertron is dead.

Optimus still can't quite fathom it. He has seen the metallic curve of their planet shimmer into existence in the blue skies above earth. Has seen it, and has been horrified by it, for having the mass of an entire planet appear so suddenly would have surely destabilized the entire solar system. Or at least the inner four planets. The cataclysmic effects of a second gravity well upon earth's climate and atmosphere would have been minor compared to that. The very same effects would have devastated Cybertron. He still can't understand what Sentinel was thinking.

So, to save at least one planet, Optimus destroyed the control pillar, knowing fully well that Cybertron would be torn apart by the forces of the collapsing space bridge.

In the end, brave little Bumblebee had had to finish the deed, but it was on Optimus' orders. He knows he has given those orders, but he still can't believe it. Because that is something all their millions of years of war haven't managed: Barely four years after destroying their collective wisdom and knowledge in the Allspark, he has also killed the body of their living God.

Primus is dead.

Ever since the end of the war, guilt has been etching itself into Optimus' processors with a ferocity he has never known before. He is the God-slayer. He is the one who has destroyed everything Cybertronians could still call theirs after eons of war, next to an untold amount of lives. By all rights, he should be extinguished for the enormity of his crimes. And yet he is the only one who can prevent Cybertronians from dying out. He has the last creator-spark, is the last way of keeping the Transformers race alive.

None of his Autobots have said anything to him, either of his guilt or of his duty to spark new mechs. But Optimus has thought long and hard on it, his spark twisting and turning upon itself every single klik. And he has come to the heavy conclusion that the only way he can do penance is by creating as many mechs as he can. By living despite his guilt.

And so he lives and smiles and tries to be the steady pillar of support his Autobots need after the cataclysmic end of the war. He smiles at Sideswipe, smiles despite Sideswipe's ragged fields that barely contain a spark-deep longing beneath fragmented shards of pain.

“Please,” is the only thing Sideswipe can say, more broken than they all together. Except maybe for Optimus. How, if not for being broken in a similar way, could Optimus understand Sideswipe's wish so intimately?

But he can't allow himself this way out. It would be too cowardly to flee the punishment of living when he is the only one between Transformers and extinction.

It is only his creator-partition that lets Optimus unfurl his fields with love and caring, and Sideswipe's entire frame sags in relief. Deliberately, Optimus calls Sunstreaker's memories to the forefront, so that some of the brotherly familiarity plays in his fields.

“Will you give me until tonight?” he asks with concern, getting ready to reschedule his entire itinerary should Sideswipe not be able to wait. He is currently in several conferences with humans, and there are more scheduled until his recharge period. While he might not have any problem dividing his attention between several different conversations, what Sideswipe is asking is something different.

He carefully wraps Sideswipe in his fields, doing his best to soothe the last spark-split twin alive. Both Skids and Mudflap have been killed and disintegrated by Sentinel, and to Optimus' knowledge they had been the last intact pair. “And, please think on if this is truly what you want,” he just has to add, even though he know Sideswipe won’t change his opinion.

Sideswipe is just standing there with his optics offline, swaying slightly in the calming and familiar fields. Slowly, the hurt is ebbing away to a tiredness so vast that Optimus can't fathom how Sideswipe has made himself live this long. The part of him that is Sunstreaker echoes in sympathy as Sideswipe nods but doesn't move.

It is alright. If Sideswipe wants to stay until then, he can do so.

Optimus tries not to let his own guilt and anguish show. Instead, he draws even more heavily on his creator-partition, like it has become automatic for him. The humans on the other end of his communication lines, a local politician, a representative from a humanitarian relief organization, and the owner of a chemistry company that produces important raw materials for them but refuses to sell to 'the monsters of Chicago', don't even realize that the video image he generates for them isn't recorded by a camera in his office. They have absolutely no idea that he is talking to more than one of them at the same time, let alone that his attention is somewhere else entirely.

It is eery how Sideswipe, who normally is full of energy and mischievous humor, is so quiet. But then again, Optimus realizes that he has been more subdued for a long time.

“Come here,” he says after the chemistry entrepreneur hangs up on him but has promised several tons of Xenon, Argon, and cleaning solutions in return for an exorbitant sum of money.

When Sideswipe doesn't move, Optimus gets up and embraces the silver mech. Sideswipe’s helmet barely reaches his chest plates. He isn't done yet with his conference calls, not by a long shot, but he can do his best to comfort Sideswipe until then. Up close, he can feel the full brunt of pain and exhaustion in Sideswipe's fields, and knows that the spark beneath is only held together by will-power alone.

Slowly, he guides them into a more comfortable position. In lack of Transformer-sized furniture, they sit on the floor, back to back. Like Sideswipe would have done with Sunstreaker, guarding in every direction. But instead of bracing each other Sideswipe lets himself slump until Optimus takes all his weight.

“You won't be able to talk me out of it,” Sideswipe suddenly growls, startling Optimus in the middle of yet another conversation with Director Mearing about how they won't return to Diego Garcia until Chicago is rebuilt.

“I am not trying to.”

“Good.”

A long pause spans the room, during which Optimus concentrates on his multiple conversations again.

A twist in the fields against his back alerts him to his immediate surroundings again, and to the silver bot's impending question. “Can you... can I go the same way 'Streaker did?”, Sideswipe asks tentatively, very unlike the brash mech he normally is.

That Optimus take not only his spark, but also his nanites, his memories, his energon and energy, is what Sideswipe is asking.

Optimus' spark twinges. He doesn't really want to have another ghost of a mech inside. Sunstreaker has been exceedingly useful, but... well, Optimus longs to be himself. Only himself, even though he doesn't really know anymore what that means beneath the guilt and all his small and large failures.

However, there is only one answer he can give to a bot he is about to terminate: “Yes.”

The relief in Sideswipe's fields nearly undoes him.

Time passes slowly. The shadows the Earth sun throws, wander unhurriedly across the improvised office. The windows of the warehouse are tiny and far up, but they allow a glimpse of the outside. Eventually it grows dark and only Optimus' optics illuminate the room. Sideswipe's are still off. His fields however tell that he hasn't slipped into recharge yet. They are too irregular, twinging with pain and unrest beneath a heavy layer of calm knowledge and longing.

Hours later, the last call ends. And then, they just sit in the dark.

Sideswipe eventually huffs in a distant echo of Sunstreaker. “Are you going to wait until I deactivate on my own, Prime?”

Optimus is able to produce a soft chuckle from his vocalizer as he lets his Creator-partition take a full hold of him. It has been right beneath his surface all day long, but to deal with the humans he hadn't been able to let it take over. That time has passed, however.

“I was waiting for you,” he smiles and his spark aches with all the love he feels for the silver mech. For a mech that trusts him with the ultimate gift.

“Keh.”

Optimus' hydraulics compensate smoothly for the sudden absence of weight as Sideswipe decides to sit up straight. A second pair of optics ignites and illuminates the room in sweeping blue.

“Got to do everything myself,” Sideswipe mutters and grabs Optimus' shoulder to pull him backwards. His claws prick teasingly into Optimus' armor seams where Ratchet has reattached his arm barely three months ago. The spot is still more sensitive than the rest of Optimus' frame, and Sideswipe is going to use that mercilessly.

“If you don't want to take the initiative, then it's your own fault if some curious human or bot decides to come and investigate. Lie down,” he grouches, but Optimus can tell that his annoyance is only feigned.

Sideswipe is just enough of an exhibitionist that he thinks it only right and proper that everyone knows when and how he chooses to go out. And anyway, here on earth they just don't have the shielded facilities that would be able to give them complete privacy. They don't even have private quarters at all, here in the outskirts of Chicago. They live in warehouses, inside walls that are thinner than unarmored plates. That Optimus has his own office is a great luxury already.

Optimus lets Sideswipe guide him down, not to the ground to his surprise, but into the other's lap. He looks up to see Sideswipe staring down at him with an unfathomable gaze, his servos cradling Optimus' helmet. His digits caress Optimus' jaw struts, the lines of his throat, the points of his claws pricking soft arousal into coolant and energon lines.

Nearly on automatic, Optimus' servo rises to press Sideswipe's closer to his face. He is a bit surprised that Sideswipe is taking his time like this, not imitating the glorious rush that had been Sunstreaker's overload. But he doesn't mind, not at all. He smiles up at the mech and pulses his comfort. It is like they are in a world of their own, his optics illuminating Sideswipe's plates, and Sideswipe's optics being reflected in his.

“May I see your spark?” Sideswipe asks softly, digits never stopping in their caressing.

Optimus chuckles slightly. “Of course.”

And then he parts his chest plates. It feels so open, so vulnerable to do this in such a position. Without much charge yet coating his lines, there is little to distract him from Sideswipe's hungry gaze, from his fields that twist and shiver with something that can't quite be called trepidation, but not anticipation either.

Slowly, he pushes his innermost workings forward, the Matrix sliding to the side as his spark chamber spirals open. Even before, the room was illuminated by their optics. Now, Optimus' spark joins the lights in a bluish-white flare, bright enough to be seen far outside through the warehouse windows.

Sideswipe's fascination is followed by the servo Optimus isn't holding to his face. The silver warrior slowly extends it to the opening in Optimus' chest, and Optimus' fans turn on simply from the close feedback between Sideswipe's fields and his unshielded spark. Sideswipe briefly meets Optimus' optics again before a sly smirk steals itself into Sideswipe's fields and face.

“So you like this,” the single twin chuckles and deliberately passes his servo right in front of Optimus' spark. The dark shadows of his fingers dance across the ceiling in a dizzying flow.

A whine forces itself from Optimus' vocalizer as the magnetic interference radiates charge straight into his inner-most components. “Yes,” he groans in pleasure and his processors become dizzy with the charge slowly bleeding into the rest of his circuits. His spark flares with all the love he feels, so strong that it is impossible to contain it within his frame. Sideswipe responds with an answering rev of his engine, but bats away every one of Optimus' attempts to reciprocate in a tactile way.

He strokes the rim of Optimus' spark casing, caressing the wires and energon lines. Surges of charge bloom through Optimus' processors, and he has to let go of Sideswipe’s servo because he is losing more and more control.

Sideswipe just chuckles, while his attention wanders closer and closer towards Optimus’ spark that pulses in welcome. Touches to the chest seams. Caresses to the crystal spark chamber, ever so slowly edging towards the hypersensitive rim. Optimus is running hot already, and Sideswipe has hardly done anything.

The first claw that dips into the corona feels like a direct live-wire to his processors. It is so intense that for a moment Optimus can't tell whether it is pain or pleasure. He trembles, spark chamber deep coding making him hold still so that he doesn't injure himself accidentally on Sideswipe's claws. But then a raw ecstasy follows that has Optimus' digits scrabble against the ground and all his armor loosen in a desperate mechanical reaction to the heat pouring through him.

A second claw pushes into the corona of his spark, and Optimus is lost. He wants to share his ecstasy so badly, but he doesn't want to push a hardline on Sideswipe. Sideswipe will do that himself when he is ready. So Optimus returns the favor by pushing his fields deep into the other's. He barely has enough processing power left to adjust his frequencies until he synchs up with the silver frame, and they suddenly pulse, teek, live in absolute harmony.

Sideswipe groans, digits spasming as all his armor plates slide into a looser configuration. Arousal roars to life, fed into the silver twin through their synchronicity.

With trembling claws, Sideswipe continues stroking Optimus' spark, attention riveted completely on the multiple hues that reflect in his mirror-finish plating. The silver twin glows in the same light as Optimus' insides, vibrations of holy rapture in his fields. Static starts jumping across the loose plates along Optimus' frame as Sideswipe continues caressing, stroking, worshipping the spark he will join.

Beneath those talented digits slowly reaching deeper, Optimus is as helplessly lost to the pleasure as a new-spark.

When the inevitable overload comes, it is in a sharp surge that arcs against Sideswipe's claws and frame and even against the steel beams of the warehouse. His fields, what is left of Sunstreaker, reach out to Sideswipe and cling to him, and try to drag the silver twin with him.

But Sideswipe resists, vents fully opened, fans running on their highest setting, surge-breakers starting to smoke. He doesn't overload, even though his optics are so bright with charge that they are nearly white.

Instead, the silver mech uses the moment of Optimus' unfettered bliss to set the energon shunt into place. The pain of having his neck lines pierced – an unusual place for a shunt because of the strong energon flow there – only contrasts the pleasure all the sharper, extending the overload for endless-seeming nanokliks. Sideswipe winces as he sets his end of the shunt, transfer rate dangerously high between neck lines.

Just as Optimus comes down, the first energon hits his systems in an incredible rush. And then Sideswipe is already plugged into him -- when did that happen? -- and both charge and the connection-establishing bits start flowing. Optimus can't do anything but groan as he the new electricity hits him when the old hasn't dissipated completely yet. He reaches for Sideswipe, tries to tug him closer, and this time the silver twin lets him. The mech trembles as he settles Optimus’ torso on the ground. With hasty, desperate motions, he comes around, crawls across Optimus' sparking frame.

Optimus mewls as claws scratch at his interface panel, the piece of metal folding away even before he has given the command. Then Sideswipe is above him and inside his valve, Optimus' spark reflected in his plating, optics so charged that they glow white-hot. They buck into each other, just enough processing power left to not jar the lines connecting them.

It is desperation and ecstasy and love and purpose, and so much more that Optimus can't untangle which belongs to who. It is fast and hard, and all of a sudden Sideswipe's spark unfolds from beneath his chest plates. He mashes them together – who grapples for whom? – spark chambers grazing each other, then coronas meshing. And while the warehouse grows dark now that their frames shield each other's sparks, their brightly glowing optics stare off sightlessly.

It is a rush of energy and data and emotion unlike any Optimus has ever felt before. Their synchronized fields are completely out of control, screaming their charged ecstasy across all spectra. Sideswipe sinks deeper and deeper, and hundreds and thousands of petabits stream into Optimus' consciousness over the hardline. New-spark memories, battle tactics, good orns, bad orns, and of course there is always that unthinking connection to Sunstreaker in them. They both keen in joy as in those memories Sunstreaker is still alive.

For those short moment before the plasma unravels into Optimus, Sideswipe seems more alive than he has the past several vorns.

Then the silver mech convulses in overload, soaking Optimus' valve with his nanites, and crossing that last bit of distance. In a flare of terminal ecstasy, Sideswipe's spark becomes one with Optimus.

It is only when the fields created by Sideswipe's now-empty frame begin to die off that Optimus regains enough processing power to stop striving mindlessly for his own overload. Slowly, the charge through the hardline connection trickles to a halt, just like the energon flow into his neck lines.

He shivers.

The empty frame on top of him is turning gray and cold. It shields his spark, shields the pulsing glow of his churning self, but it can't shield the arousal and charge his frame is still surfing along. He is nearly insensate with the pleasure in his lines, the nanites in his sparking valve, and somehow even the data of Sideswipe's personality becomes ecstasy in his processors. He is one, and yet he is many, and it feels as if his spark was trying to stroke itself to overload.

Instinctively, he clutches at the deactivated frame on top of him, pressing the empty spark chamber harder against his. It soothes some of the itch, but only for a very short time. He moans with the arousal in his lines as his spark chamber scrapes against the dead one, and eventually he can't take it anymore. He flips them over so that he comes to lie on top, nearly insensate from the burning pleasure the move has induced. It is an automatic reaction to let the dead spike slip out of his clenching valve, and instead slide home in the one that was formerly Sideswipe's.

He is so far gone that he isn't even surprised that the valve is slippery, friction coefficient nearly eliminated by the charge in the dead frame. He doesn't really think about what he is doing -- seeking satisfaction from a deactivated frame -- he just thrusts and thrusts and presses himself closer into the dead spark chamber.

And then there is the pain he knows so intimately, the pain of a spark stretching to fill the void, and it becomes a wild ecstasy as his creator-partition does what it has been made for: He spins new life into being. It grows and grows, becoming an arhythmic thump, straining and pulling away from him until he thinks it will take his own spark with it.

The snap of the last tendrils of the new spark separating, born from Optimus', throws him into an overload so hard that any Transformer within a three mile radius probably feels the bursts of his fields. There is nanite-rich transfluid gushing into the suddenly arching frame, color springing into life where there had been gray deactivation before, and fields twining with his in similar ecstasy. And Optimus drowns in the feeling of there suddenly being another consciousness on the other end of the hardline again, and he wants to explode with love for the new spark.

Eventually, enough charge has bled off his lines that he can think semi-clearly again. It becomes a rush to remove the energon shunt from his lines and connect it the right way round – Sideswipe has already bled the other frame nearly dry, and it is really only the energy transfer of the hardline that keeps the new mech from stasis. Optimus only relaxes once his surveillance of the other's autonomics tells him that an acceptable filling level has been reached.

Only then does he turn to the person he can feel emerging on the other end of the hardline.

There is the patience and the intelligence of Prowl, who died a thousand vorns ago trying -- and succeeding -- in stopping the Decepticons from getting their hands on spark-cloning technology. Then there is a steadfast loyalty that reminds him of Ironhide, who died three months ago. And then there is some of the determination he has only seen in Sunstreaker and Sideswipe to this extent.

On one hand, it is bitter to see just how many dead mech this new one reminds him of. On the other hand, it is comforting, too, to know that no bot will ever be truly gone. And there is a love overlying it all, so deep and fathomless that Optimus wonders for a moment if this really is a mech. But then he becomes aware of protocols in the other mech, ones that are so similar to his own, and he realizes that this is another creator-spark.

His fields sing in joy for he is not the only one anymore.

He watches through the hardline how the new mech integrates the programs Sideswipe has left, how new spark coding etches itself into the crystal chamber, how full memory banks reformat themselves to leave nothing but basic skills. The spark takes the formerly empty frame and makes it its own in a way that Optimus has never known could happen. By the time that optics light up the dark warehouse – white, not blue like Sideswipe's had been – there is no question anymore that this is a completely new mech.

“What is your name?” Optimus finally asks in unfettered awe.

The silver mech smiles at him with a love that encompasses everything. Not the love of a new creation though, but a love grounded in wisdom and compassion that reaches from Optimus' guilt-wracked spark to his outermost fields. And Optimus actually feels soothed by it, although by all rights it should be the other way round.

“I am Protos,” the mech says as he trails Optimus' cheek spar with the back of a digit.

It takes a while for that name to make it to his processors. Then Optimus startles thoroughly. “You are – “ He can't bring himself to say the translation that springs up in his dictionaries. 'The First', Greek, which would be rendered to a very familiar name in Latin: Primus.

Protos – Primus? - just smiles. “Do you really think a god could ever limit himself like this? Not even Cybertron, a planet-sized frame, has been able to contain His entire essence. I am nothing but a mech.”

There is a wisdom inside him that Optimus can’t quite grasp. The new mech speaks with a conviction that Optimus wants to believe so badly. Especially because it offers a hope and an absolution he had thought forever barred to him. “Then – He is still alive?”

“How could He not be? Are you not still alive? Have you not created me?” Protos asks, a faith in his words that is unshakable.

It is the only reason that Optimus lets out what has been weighing on him. “But- how can that be when I _killed_ Him!”

Protos looks at him as if _he_ were the new-spark. Amused. Indulgent. “Do you really think you can kill Him when He is in every single one of us?” He waits a bit to let that sink in. “Know that there is nothing to be forgiven. Become whole again, Optimus. You aren't the only creator-spark anymore, but you are only at the beginning of the journey still.”

Not caring anymore about the role-reversal, Optimus shutters his optics and lets the wisdom, the presence of the new mech, undo him. Protos enfolds him in his arms, gives Optimus’ anguished fields something to rage against. The new mech holds him until the memories of Sideswipe are settled, until both his spark and his frame feel his own again, until all the guilt and sorrow and hundreds of thousands of deaths he has caused, have poured out of him.

They remain like that until Optimus feels empty and tired, but clean in a way he had missed for a long, long time. While Protos slowly disconnects them, pulls the energon shunt as if he had done it hundreds of times before, Optimus begins to heal.


End file.
